Scrubbed Red
by G.E Waldo
Summary: From an anonymous prompt at Mentalist KINK MEME: "Red John befriends amnesia!Jane, knowing that when Jane regains his memories, he will forget everything that happened while he was in the fugue state. Gen or slash, either is fine."


**Scrubbed Red**

From an anonymous prompt at Mentalist KINK MEME: "Red John befriends amnesia!Jane, knowing that when Jane regains his memories, he will forget everything that happened while he was in the fugue state. Gen or slash, either is fine."

By GeeLady

Pairing: Jane/Red John (a bit slashy) and Jane/Lisbon (friendship).

CBI

"Where's Paul tonight?"

"He has a cold." He answered.

The stern PM Charge nurse, her Roman nose thrusting itself out in to her small kingdom of power, frowned at this newest Aid whom she had not seen before today. "Oh. What's your name?"

"My name is Ray."

"Well, you've got a new patient in room 723. Been here a few days; a post-drowning victim with pneumonia and memory problems so take it easy on him, all right? No loud television – and no _card games_. Paul may have let him break the rules but I won't, meaning _you_. And don't forget your notes."

"Of course." _You ugly bitch!_

Ray gathered up the notes for patient Patrick Jane and headed in the direction of the private room. Paul didn't actually _have_ a cold (a necessary lie), Paul _was_ cold.

By now.

Ray entered the room, turning the bolt behind him, to find his patient sleeping soundly on his right side, hands tucked up beneath the hospital issue cheap sponge pillow, the sheet and single blanket pulled up loosely under his left elbow. The room, like most hospital rooms, was over-heated and stuffy, smelling of antiseptic and human flesh. The flesh part was always lovely.

This flesh was loveliest of all. The sleeping blonde, his hair a storm of untamed curls, appeared peaceful - a sight Ray had rarely glimpsed. "Hello Patrick." He whispered very softly. For all the troubles Patrick had caused him during his career, killing Patrick Jane was not on his To-Do list. Killing the man who tried to kill him by drowning was another matter entirely. That welcome eventuality was already in the works. His knife had just come back from the shop the previous day, polished to an elegant and deadly edge.

Ray prepared the syringe. The fine needle penetrated the flesh of Patrick's neck with little resistance. His patient only stirred briefly before opening surprised and now drug-dilated eyes.

"Hello Patrick. How are you feeling?"

Patrick frowned.

Ray smiled. Yes, Patrick Jane was no fool, and many things were undoubtedly already stirring in his mind: It was still dark outside. Why would a nurse be waking him in the middle of the night? Why were the lights not on? And why was he feeling so utterly groggy that he could not raise his head from the pillow?

All questions Ray could see flashing across Patrick's intelligent mind, the naked thoughts beaming at him through curiously watchful eyes. Eyes Ray had always relished looking into.

What exquisitely sad and wonderful eyes Patrick Jane owned, full of such unfulfillable longing and sorrow. Angry eyes though they frequently offered the simplest of kindnesses. Eyes fired with deep regret and smouldering fury, yet frail in their mortality. They were ever gentle, astonishingly candid and beautiful eyes. The eyes of a god cast down.

"I've given you something to help you relax, Patrick - nurse's orders." Ray stroked the blonde hair with two fingers. "I know, I know, she can be such a_ trial_." He pulled the covers back. "Don't worry she won't bother you much longer." Ray assured his drugged, helpless patient though he frowned at the promise he had just made. By necessity his To-Do list was getting longer each and every day, but the nurse had been an unnecessary bitch and he would have no foul such as that caring over his lovely, lovely Patrick, who presently needed a delicate touch.

However, cutting up ugly bitches was for later. "But right now, it's time for your bath."

Ray frowned, listening with disapproval to Patrick's ragged breathing. "My poor Patrick, I understand - believe me." He said. "Drowning is a very painful way to die, and it can take many days for _all_ the water to leave your lungs. In the meantime it feels like one is still drowning."

Ray continued to undress his patient as he softly spoke. "Pneumonia can set in, as I see it has in you. I don't understand why they do not have you on oxygen right this minute. But unlike you and me the world is full of idiots and sloths who have no respect for their work. We understand that, don't we?"

Ray filled a basin with warm, soapy water. Tossing in a clean wash-cloth, and draping a clean, dry towel over his arm, he approached the bed like a waiter about to serve a rare delicacy to an important patron. Leaving the basin and cloths on the rolling table for a moment, Ray un-tied the ugly hospital gown the nurses had wrapped their patient in, tugging and pulling the offensive garment from him.

In another moment, Patrick was naked, lying on his back and staring up at his nurse, his eyes frightened now. But still he managed to make his lips move. Ray knew this moment would come and he leaned in obligingly to hear the strangled whispers.

"Who am I?" Ray repeated Patrick's question aloud, and the next one "And what am I doing? Why I am your nurse, Patrick, don't you remember? I'm Ray – though people sometimes call me John - and I'm here to give you a bath."

He sloshed the water around, making the soap bubbles to come up, explaining as he did so. "You may not remember but we're old acquaintances, you and I – in fact, we're more than that, we're kindred spirits on a great quest. We're two souls separated by circumstance. We're a sword with two finely honed edges. We're Fate itself."

Ray stopped and peered deeply into Patrick's eyes, his own brown ones hovering above Patrick's aqua-blues from only inches. "We are entwined together like two lovers who meet in a dark alley and cannot resist each other even for a moment." Ray stood straight once more, admiring his naked victim. "I love you." He ran one palm over Patrick's abdomen. "All of you..."

As Ray spoke of love and destiny he soaked the cloth and began to run it in circles on Patrick's smooth chest and hairless stomach. Water ran down to the sheets, wetting them, and Patrick shivered. The blonde, almost invisible hairs on his arms and legs stood on end, and Ray soothed him with a few well-chosen pressing of his thin lips to skin. "Is that better?"

Ray dried him and moved on with his freshly wrung soapy cloth to his legs, bending each at the knee and hip to wash and dry underneath. He did the same with his arms, lifting first one, then the other. "You are very beautiful Patrick. Looking at you is always a treat for me. One I get to indulge too infrequently. I am afraid where you are concerned I am a bit of a voyeur. You are my one weakness, I admit it freely." Ray wrung his cloth once more and applied it to Patrick's genitals, very gently washing in and around all folds and crevasses.

When he was done, Ray rolled Patrick onto his side and washed his back and then finally his hair, placing the small basin beneath the blonde curls and massaging his scalp a long time, until Ray shuddered, almost convulsively, letting out a long and satisfied sigh of pleasure. "There, that's better, Patrick. That's much better." Ray dropped Patrick's head on the pillow, leaving his hair to air-dry, and stumbled back to plop down in the rooms' single hard chair.

Through his thin blood-coloured scrubs Ray rubbed at his wet sticky crotch. "That is _ever_ so much better."

Ray shed his scrub bottoms and drew on the new, clean pair he had brought with him and then wrapped the soiled pair around his waist, pulling his top down to hide the small bulk. He walked back to the bedside and rolled Patrick onto his back once more. "Rest now, dear Patrick." He said, pulling the covers up to tuck them around his patient's neck. "Sleep well."

Ray kissed his lips softly just once, lingering there, almost reverentially. "I'll see you again soon. You take care of that pneumonia now."

CBI

Lisbon spoke to the doctor.

"It's called a fugue state." The doc' was explaining, and Lisbon only half heard him, recalling Jane's face that had looked at her as a stranger did to another, though his words themselves had been over-familiar.

"Memory loss tied to trauma." The doctor added. "He could come out of it in days, weeks, or never, but keeping him around familiar places and people will help to trigger the return of his memories."

Lisbon drove Jane back to the office with hopes it would be only hours until all of Jane, including his memories, came home. "Do you know anyone called Ray or John?" He asked her, jerking her from her state of quiet anxiety.

Lisbon took her eyes off the road long enough to stare at him in shock. Was his memory returning already? "Are you playing around?"

Jane looked back at her, his expression one of total innocence. "No."

"Ray – _John_ is Re..." But then she heard again the doctor's words_..."Let his memory return on its own. If you push, he could react by burying them even deeper."_

"Did something happen last night?" She asked.

He shook his head. "Just a horrible dream."

She could imagine. Probably him being drowned by Red John, the water surrounding his body, Red John's hands on him. That the killer would even enter a hospital room to torment a man who was already the victim of an attempted murder...the thought was a violation in itself. And because of those interfering evil hands, Jane, gasping for every breath, going down into blackness and fear...

Lisbon shuddered. "I'm sorry."

"Doesn't matter." Jane said, but he mused aloud, his voice the picture of puzzlement. "Ray...John...it will come to me eventually."

CBI

_**END**_


End file.
